QV 
561 

.no/ 
1908 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/placeofathleticsOOwarf 


■    v        4.       .    '-/\ 


The  Place  of  Athletics 
in  College  Life. 


LTHELBERT  D.  WARFIELD, 

PRESIDENT  OF    LAFAYETTE  COLLEGE. 


GV  561  .W37  1908 

Warfieid,  Etheibert  Dudley, 

1861-1936. 
The  place  of  athletics  in 

college  life 


LIBRARY  OF  PRINCETON 


THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


THE 


Place  of  Athletics 


IN 


COLLEGE  LIFE. 


A  PLEA  AND  A  PROTEST. 


ETHKLBERT  D.  WARFIELD,  D.D.,  LE.D., 

PRESIDENT  OF  LAFAYETTE  COLLEGE. 


Easton,  PjC 
ESCHENBACH  PRINTING  |g©RARY  OF 

1908 


APR 


THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


These  little  papers  appeared  in  the  New  York  Independent  for 
January  25,  1894,  and  the  Forum  for  January,  1894,  and  have 
met  with  a  reception  and  a  demand  which  seems  to  justify  their 
publication  in  pamphlet  form.  They  are,  therefore,  now  sent 
forth,  with  the  consent  of  those  periodicals  in  the  hope  that  they 
may  do  something  at  once  to  justify  and  safeguard  the  manly 
sports  of  our  American  colleges. 
November,  1894. 


The  demand  for  these  papers  has  been  so  steady  that  they  are 
again  printed.  The  original  form  is  retained  because  it  is  inter- 
esting to  observe  what  reforms  have  been  made  and  what  yet 
remain  to  be  accomplished.  It  is  especially  noteworthy  that  the 
taint  of  professionalism  continues  to  be  the  greatest  evil,  and 
most  persistent  in  connection  with  baseball.  No  solution  of  this 
difficult  question  can  be  reached  which  does  not  start  from  the 
position  that  all  forms  of  sport  must  be  the  recreation  of  gentleman 
in  order  to  be  classed  as  amateur.  To  play  ball  for  money  is  not 
dishonorable,  and  may  be  highly  laudable.  But  the  man  who 
does  it  is  not  an  amateur.  Nor  can  it  be  expected  that  the  boy 
who  seeks  recreation  in  games  can  compete  on  equal  terms  with 
those  who  make  games  a  means  of  livelihood.  College  games 
should  be  limited  to  those  who  devote  no  more  time  to  them  than 
can  be  spared  from  the  serious  pursuit  of  College  studies. 
August,  1008. 


THE  PLACE  OF  ATHLETICS 
IN  COLLEGE  LIFE. 


THE  PLEA. 

In  an  article  on  "Football  as  a  Moral  Agent,"  in  The 
Nineteenth  Century  for  December,  Mr.  H.  H.  Almond, 
Head  Master  of  Loretto  School,  says: 

"When  the  complaint  was  made  to  a  well-known  head 
master  that  British  boys  talked  far  too  much  about  foot- 
ball and  cricket,  he  answered:  'And  what  do  French 
boys  talk  about?'  " 

The  question  was  highly  pertinent  and  it  is  worth 
while  to  compare  existing  conditions  in  our  American 
colleges  resulting  from  the  interest  in  athletics  with  the 
conditions  which  might  exist,  have  existed,  and  do  exist 
elsewhere.  Athletic  sports  have  done  so  much  for 
English  and  American  school  and  college  life  that  we 
may  well  be  careful  how  we  assail  them.  Let  us  mark 
well  the  current  abuse  of  athletics  in  a  few  great  schools 
and  colleges,  let  us  press  for  reform  in  existing  methods, 
let  us  discourage  newspaper  notoriety,  and  insist  on  the 
maintaining  of  municipal  authority ;  but  let  us  not  allow 
abuse  to  forever  filch  from  us  our  outdoor  games. 

Let  us  inquire  what  are  the  conditions  of  university 
life  in  other  countries  where  we  hear  of  no  football  or 
baseball  or  cricket,  and,  following  the  lead  of  the  quota- 
tion above,  let  us  first  look  at  France.  I  quote,  and  in 
quoting  largely  condense,  a  part  of  a  paper  on  "The 
Latin  Quarter"  of  Paris,  from  the  December  number  of 
The  University  Review,  by  Post  Wheeler: 


"The  great  institution  for  amusement  in  the  Latin 
Quarter  is  the  Bal  Bullicr — the  student's  ball. 
It  is  held  three  nights  in  a  week  and  every  one  goes. 
The  floor  of  the  Bullier  is  ten  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  street.  The  door  in  appearance  is  a  nar- 
row hole  in  an  innocent-looking  garden  wall,  and  at  first 
sight  one  wonders  how  it  can  swallow  the  hundreds  who 
go  in  thereat.  Once  in,  however,  you  walk  down  a 
broad  carpeted  stair  into  a  room  whose  very  size  makes 
you  stare. 

"Imagine,  if  you  can,  an  immense  hall  whose  roof  is 
supported  by   a  single  row  of  pillars,   etc.  .At 

the  right  the  whole  side  is  thrown  open  to  a  grove  and 
gay  canopies,  and  set  full  of  tables  for  drinking.  Scat- 
tered here  and  there  are  games  of  chance,  and  all  the 
devices  in  which  the  French  grisette  delights.  At  the 
upper  end  of  the  hall  is  a  miniature  theatre,  where  one 
can  sit  and  listen  to  a  fair  vaudeville  performance  with- 
out extra  charge.  The  girls — at  least  in  summer — 
are  in  a  large  majority,  and  even  the  most  bashful  of 
men  need  have  no  fear  of  not  finding  a  partner.  Indeed, 
if  you  do  not  take  the  initiative  you  may  be  fallen  upon 
bodily  and  carried  into  the  whirl.  And  so  the  evening 
goes  on  till  by  midnight  the  gaiety  rises  almost  to  a 
frenzy  of  hilarity.  .  .  .  On  some  of  the  crowded 
nights  the  noisy  crowd  overflows  or  spreads  itself  in 
little  pools  and  whirling  eddies  in  the  street.  The  staid 
old  Sorbonne,  France's  ancient  college  of  letters,  has 
seen  some  queer  sights.  Surely  if  the  ghost  of  its  founder 
haunts  his  marble  statue  above  the  entrance,  it  is  his 
purgatory  to  witness  such  desecration  of  that  classic 
spot." 


It  is  not  necessary  to  quote  more.  Our  writer  tells  us 
that  for  the  girls  "it  is  a  jolly  life  while  it  lasts,"  but 
with  needless  particularity  he  goes  on  to  say:  "But 
beneath  this  glitter  and  apparent  jollity  there  is  too 
often  heartache  and  despair."  This  of  the  companions 
of  the  students'  revels;  but  of  the  students  nothing; 
nothing  of  their  wasted  lives,  of  their  growing  habits 
of  dissipation,  nothing  of  heart-broken  parents  in  pro- 
vincial homes,  nothing  of  the  moral  leprosy  disseminated 
throughout  that  lovely,  but  luckless,  land.  Alas!  for 
generations  of  youth  who  have  haunted  the  students' 
quarter  at  the  University  of  Paris  and  have  gone  forth 
into  the  world,  till 

11  Some  with  lives  that  came  to  nothing,  some  with  deeds  as  well 
undone, 
Death  came  tacitly  and  took  them  where  they  never  see  the 

sun." 

Can  men  reared  under  the  blight  of  such  moral  in- 
fluences ever  become  the  safe  repository  of  free  institu- 
tions? Will  they  ever  grow  up  to  be  worthy  of  that  higher 
freedom  wherewith  Christ  doth  make  his  people  free? 
What  wonder  that  a  mad  materialism  rules  wherever 
papal  absolutism  fails  to  satisfy  with  penance  and  abso- 
lution ! 

But  how  is  German  university  life;  is  it  much  better? 
Surely  not  much.  It  is  less  fascinating,  appeals  less  to 
the  high  spirits  of  fun  and  frolic,  and  has  less  of  the 
marks  of  public  dissipation  and  dissoluteness;  but  the 
standard  of  life  is  un-American,  and  beneath  the  ideals 
received  from  our  stalwart  ancestry.  Beer  and  tobacco 
are  the  inevitable  concomitants  of  German  student  life. 
Not  merely  beer  and  tobacco,  but  as  the  little  German 


boy  is  said  to  have  replied,  when  asked  what  he  wished 
Kris  Kringle  to  bring  him  at  Christmas:  "Wurst,  wurst, 
immer  mehr  wurst."  So  it  is  beer  and  tobacco,  in  sea- 
son and  out  of  season.  Allowing  room  for  a  strong  per- 
sonal prejudice  against  both,  they  must  by  all  candid 
persons  be  admitted  to  be  a  poor  foundation  for  both 
physical  and  moral  health.  Thus,  as  a  recently  returned 
American  student  naively  remarked,  it  is  necessary,  in 
order  to  accomplish  the  best  results,  associate  with  men 
in  the  same  line  of  work,  and  get  the  important  knowl- 
edge of  just  how  to  prepare  for  the  final  examinations, 
to  become  a  member  of  a  students'  Verein,  or  club;  and 
all  clubs  have  their  Kneipe,  or  drinking  bouts,  and  a 
new  member,  or  Fuchs,  may  at  any  time  be  required  to 
drink  as  much  as  any  older  member  may  desire  him  to 
drink.  Such  are  the  meetings  of  the  hard-working, 
earnest-minded  students,  meetings  often  prolonged  till 
morning,  and  giving  color  to  the  best  thought  among 
the  students. 

The  other  side  of  German  student  life,  the  side  which 
is  in  close  parallel  with  our  athletics,  is  found  in  the 
clubs  which  countenance,  if  they  do  not  actively  encour- 
age, dueling.  The  present  Emperor,  reversing  the 
policy  of  his  honored  father  and  grandfather,  openly 
advocates  dueling.  He  sees  the  need  of  cultivating  a 
manliness  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  close  and  stuffy 
rooms  where  the  fumes  of  beer  and  the  smoke  of  reek- 
ing pipes  becloud  the  brain  and  enervate  the  heart. 
He  has  no  knowledge  of  any  better  way  to  stimulate 
personal  courage  than  by  setting  men  padded  to  the 
chin  to  slashing  at  each  other's  faces.  What  a  mockery 
of  manhood  it  is!  What  a  travesty  of  personal  competi- 
tion! 


These  are  typical  scenes  from  French  and  German 
college  life.  The  same  wholesome  return  to  country 
life  in  the  eighteenth  century,  which  gave  England  the 
poetry  of  the  Lake  school  and  the  prose  masterpieces  in 
which  nature  freely  breathes  from  the  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  papers  of  Addison  to  the  essays  which  Ruskin 
penned  at  Coniston,  inspired  the  renaissance  of  field 
sports.  These  sports  have  run  off  into  many  foolish 
and  hurtful  vagaries  over  and  over  again;  but  have  been 
as  often  reclaimed.  What  we  must  now  do  is  to  reclaim 
them  once  more. 

The  reason  for  the  existence  of  most  outdoor  games  is 
twofold — the  pleasure  which  men  take  in  them  and  the 
good  which  they  do  to  men  both  morally  and  physically. 
We  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  first  of  these  reasons 
except  to  mark  the  dangers  which  spring  from  it.  It  is 
because  games  are  fascinating — that  they  overdevelop 
the  love  of  personal  emulation,  that  they  too  greatly 
stimulate  competition,  and  lead  to  betting,  gambling, 
and  professionalism — that  they  must  be  watched.  But 
it  is  only  human  nature,  as  ever,  asserting  itself.  Law- 
yers become  shysters,  physicians  patent  medicine  quacks, 
authors  bitter,  envious  egotists,  under  similar  circum- 
stances. To  win  by  all  means,  to  put  money  in  the 
purse,  to  have  a  great  name  known  to  rumor  if  not  to 
fame.  These  and  their  like  have  undone  many  men. 
The  great  bowler  and  the  great  beau  haunt  the  cricket 
ground  and  the  ballroom  long  after  their  contemporaries 
have  settled  down  upon  more  real  fields  of  contest;  the 
man  who  has  made  a  life  work  of  play  still  treads  the 
cinder  path  and  the  comic  stage.     Extravagances  must 


be  reckoned  with,  but  must  not  too  quickly  be  declared 
the  normal  result  of  any  given  course  of  action. 

With  the  second  reason  for  the  existence  of  athletic 
sports  we  have  much  to  do.  We  live  in  an  age  of  re- 
turning enthusiasm  for  outdoor  life.  The  summer  is 
eagerly  looked  forward  to  by  nearly  every  man  who  can 
hope  to  save  a  tiny  mite  that  he  may  have  a  run  into  the 
country  on  his  bicycle,  a  row  down  the  river  in  his  boat, 
a  quiet  week's  fishing  in  some  favorite  stream,  or  just  a 
brief,  idle  sojourn,  doing  nothing  and  yet  much,  in  close 
communion  with  Nature  as  she  is  met  in  mountain  and 
forest.  Vigorous  hours  in  office  and  in  shop  are  the  re- 
ward of  these  things;  hopeful  hours  take  the  place  of 
timorous  days,  as  the  blood  full  of  red  corpuscles  once 
more  tingles  to  the  fingertips.  Men,  finding  these  things 
so,  rightly  conclude  that  in  the  economy  of  education, 
when  the  great  thing  is  not  how  shall  we  make  this  shape- 
less hobbledehoy  a  scholar  but  a  man,  there  must  be  a 
place  for  the  things  which  minister  to  an  abounding 
vitality.  Athletics,  field  sports,  spread  the  chest,  deepen 
the  flush  upon  the  cheek,  quicken  the  step,  brighten  the 
eye;  are  they  not  the  proper  instruments  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  desired  object?  Yes,  and  no.  Neither 
into  athletics  nor  into  learning  may  we  tumble,  helter 
skelter.  I  knew  a  lad  who  with  deeply  stirred  ambition, 
but  no  knowledge  of  algebra  or  geometry,  bought  a  trigo- 
nometry and  fell  to  master  it.  Need  any  one  be  sur- 
prised that  his  assault  failed?  The  choice  of  boys  is  apt 
to  depend  upon  the  excitement,  brilliancy,  and  popu- 
larity of  this  or  that  sport.  In  all  things  they  must  be 
guided,  in  athletics,  not  more,  but  just  as  much  as  in 
Greek. 


Our  boys  need  and  must  have  the  outdoor  life.  We 
want  them  to  find  their  place  and  fill  it.  Football 
shows  a  better  sight  a  thousandfold  as  the  match  goes  on, 
with  the  cheering  hundreds  shouting  their  approval, 
than  the  French  Bal  Bullier.  A  sight  infinitely  better 
for  spectator  and  participant,  though  but  twenty-two 
boys  get  all  the  good  the  game  supplies — though  those 
twenty-two  get,  also,  all  the  evil  the  game  occasions. 
Compare  that  evil  with  the  evil  of  the  German  Kneipe, 
or  compare  that  open-eyed,  open-mouthed,  open- 
hearted  crowd  with  the  secret  assembly  which  watches 
the  Schldgerei  at  Heidelberg  or  Bonn.  Those  who  look 
on  and  only  shout  are  getting  so  much  outdoor  air; 
and  have  their  places  on  scrub  or  class  teams,  on  base- 
ball nines,  or  boat  crews,  or  only  play  in  a  "picked-up" 
game  on  the  back  campus,  or  in  a  game  of  tennis ;  or, 
finding  the  outdoor  life  the  pleasant  and  profitable  thing 
it  is,  take  up  regular  tramps  into  the  country  round 
about.  Boys  must  not  dig  at  books  all  the  time;  boys 
must  grow  to  men,  big-limbed  as  well  as  big-brained. 
Fill  the  chest  as  well  as  the  brain  with  fresh  breezes 
from  the  crests  of  the  Appalachians  as  well  as  from  the 
heights  of  Helicon. 

All  of  these  things  minister  not  merely  to  the  physical 
but  also  to  the  moral  nature.  Most  outdoor  games 
not  merely  strengthen  the  limbs,  give  certainty  to  the 
movements,  make  skilful  the  hand,  and  sure  the  eye, 
but  also  give  a  great  command  to  the  will  over  the  ac- 
tions of  the  body.  The  well-trained  will  in  a  successful 
ball-player  is  as  important  as  the  steering  gear  in  a  line- 
of-battle-ship.  Not  merely  courage,  which  is  often 
cited,  but  all  forms  of  self-control  are  put  at  a  premium. 


IO 


The  true  athlete  cultivates  that  <Tw<f>  poo-vvrj,  which  to 
the  Homeric  Greeks  was  self-control,  prudence,  dis- 
cretion; and  which  later  also  set  the  high  virtues  of 
sobriety  and  chastity  in  its  constellation. 

What  we  want  vigorously  to  protest  against  is  the 
overdoing  of  games  which  spoil  the  games  and  spoil  the 
men — against  the  tendency  to  make  a  great  spectacle  of 
our  youth.  Alexander  the  Great  scornfully  refused  to 
compete  in  the  Olympic  games,  while  the  dissolute 
Roman  emperors  fought  as  gladiators  in  the  Coliseum. 
The  scene  of  a  competition  may  greatly  change  its  char- 
acter. Sometimes  the  "hippodroming,>  is  carried  so 
far  that  the  successful  athlete  draws  perilously  near  to 
the  dime  museum  freak.  The  gambling  and  the  gate- 
money  evils  ought  to  have  such  attention  that  no  man 
may  see  any  analogy  between  a  gentleman's  amusement 
and  a  horse  race  or  a  traveling  circus. 

These  things  aside,  we  must  safeguard  our  games; 
for  in  them  lie  the  best  protection  we  possess  against 
the  social  sins  of  France  and  the  gregarious  vices  of 
Germany.  They  afford,  moreover,  a  clean  subject 
for  common  talk,  a  subject  in  which  teachers  and  taught 
can  claim  an  equal  share.  I  wonder  how  much  young 
men  everywhere  talk  about  such  things  as  are  focused 
in  the  Bal  Bullier  scene;  talk  which  they  do  not  repeat 
to  father,  mother,  or  sister,  which  they  do  not  share 
with  teachers  or  respected  friends.  Some,  surely,  but 
how  much  more  would  such  things  be  spoken,  and 
speech  translated  into  deed,  if  it  were  not  that  athletic 
interests  afford  a  safe  and  sure  ground  of  common  dis- 
cussion ! 


II 


Every  gardener  knows  that  but  few  soils  will  carry  a 
complete  sod  of  a  single  variety  of  grass.  Interstices 
always  remain.  Into  these,  other  seed  fall  and  spring 
up.  Hence  it  is  usual  to  make  a  sod  for  the  lawn  for 
several  kinds  of  good  grasses,  otherwise  rank  weeds 
would  seize  the  tempting  opportunity  and  quickly  hide 
the  good  grass,  and  even  eradicate  it.  So  with  college 
life.  Men  are  not  intellectual  animals  only,  but  not  less 
social  and  physical  beings.  Into  the  life  filled  to  satiety 
with  lessons,  recitations,  lectures,  and  all  forms  of  intel- 
lectual effort,  relaxations  must  come.  The  safest  re- 
laxations thus  far  found  by  faithful  and  anxious  seekers 
are  those  which  center  about  the  athletic  field. 

In  our  righteous  warfare  against  abuses,  let  us  prac- 
tice the  temperance  for  which  we  plead,  and  not  yield 
to  the  temptation  so  fatal  to  reformers  to  become  fanatics. 


THE  PROTEST. 

College  athletics,  with  all  the  objections  that  can  be 
raised  to  the  conditions  just  now  so  plainly  thrust  upon 
public  notice,  are  an  unqualified  good.  They  have  done 
more  to  purify,  dignify,  and  elevate  college  life  than  any 
other  influence  brought  to  bear  in  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century.  No  man  who  is  conversant  with  the  inside 
history  of  the  public  schools  and  universities  of  England 
and  the  colleges  of  America  can  question  this.  Many 
forms  of  disorder,  "barring-outs,"  "stacking  rooms," 
and  so  forth,  have  almost  disappeared  since  the  animal 
spirits  of  our  youth  had  a  systematic  outlet.  Good 
morals  have  been  vastly  benefited  by  the  strong  appeal 
which  systematized  athletics  make  for  outdoor  life,  by 
the  constant  testimony  which  they  bear  to  the  close  con- 
nection between  frugality  and  regularity  of  life,  and 
vigorous  manhood.  Vices — some  of  which  cannot  even 
be  named — which  exist  wherever  men,  especially  civil- 
ized men,  are  brought  together,  have  been  greatly  checked. 
Clean  living  has  found  a  great  coadjutor.  Let  any  man 
of  fifty  compare  the  college  escapades  of  his  own  day 
with  those  of  the  present  time,  and  he  will  confess  that 
the  rare  exception  of  to-day  was  frequent  then.  College 
life  is  not  to  be  charged  with  these  irregularities.  Put 
a  number  of  men  together,  with  human  appetites,  vitality, 
and  a  love  of  freedom,  and  they  will  do  the  same  things 
in  city  or  country  or  college.  Neither  parental  nor  col- 
legiate restraints  have  ever  prevented,  or  ever  will  pre- 
vent, these  things.  Something  better  must  be  laid 
before  our  youth,  and  a  stronger  attraction  must  take 
the  place  of  the  attraction  to  evil. 


13 

While  I  am  a  strong  believer  in  college  athletics,  I 
am  not  at  all  of  the  opinion  that  they  are  the  best  form 
of  bodily  exercise.  I  fully  agree  with  the  view  expressed 
by  Professor  MahafTy  in  his  "Greek  Thought,"  that  not 
athletics  of  the  gymnasium  and  the  paloestra,  but  "field 
sports — hunting,  shooting,  fishing — have  produced  the 
finest  type  of  man."  The  virtues  of  horsemanship, 
shooting,  and  fishing  are  more  akin  to  mastery  of  self, 
and  the  close  relation  of  man  to  nature.  They  beget 
the  larger  and  the  broader  man.  But  they  require  time 
and  money  beyond  the  scope  of  college  life.  Even  at 
Oxford,  tandem-driving  has  long  been  reckoned  the  eighth 
deadly  sin,  and  fox-hunting,  which  my  reverend  tutor 
indulged  in  each  Thursday  during  the  season,  came  next 
in  the  index  expurgatorius.  Field  sports  being  largely 
out  of  the  question,  let  us  weigh  the  things  which  are 
available  for  the  bodily  training  of  our  students. 

Among  the  college  sports,  football,  baseball,  and 
lawn-tennis  are  practically  universal;  track  athletics, 
boating,  and  lacrosse  are  next  in  order;  while  cricket 
and  other  games  are  played  but  little  in  American  col- 
leges. Tennis  is  the  game  which  makes  the  strongest 
claim  for  genuine  popularity.  Its  clean  and  wholesome 
nature,  its  moderate  demands  upon  the  strength  of  the 
player,  and  its  sufficiency  as  exercise,  give  it  a  high 
place  in  the  list  of  games.  Its  weak  point  is  its  com- 
paratively private  character.  It  takes  no  place  as  a  fac- 
tor in  class  or  in  college  life;  it  enlists  no  large  number 
in  its  games;  it  has  no  gregarious,  no  communal  force. 
This  is  a  serious  lack.  Men  need  in  college,  as  in  citi- 
zenship, a  focus.  The  town-meeting  of  the  student  body 
is  found  on  the  athletic  field. 


14 

Football  has  many  claims  for  popularity.  It  has  all 
the  dubious  but  powerful  attraction  of  a  contest  between 
man  and  man.  This  is  an  element  in  human  nature 
which  must  be  directed,  since  it  cannot  be  suppressed. 
It  shows  itself  in  the  competitions  for  honors  and  in 
oratory,  in  every  form  of  sport,  in  every  phase  of  human 
life,  at  the  bar,  the  hustings.  It  is  a  force  which  may 
lead  to  mere  envy,  strife,  or  cheating,  or  may  make  men 
emulous  of  all  virtue.  Football,  when  properly  played, 
is  a  school  of  morals  and  of  manners.  The  man  who  loses 
his  temper  in  the  scrimmage  will  be  surely  outplayed. 
The  man  who  plays  an  off-side  and  unfair  game  may  at 
a  critical  moment  lose  the  few  yards  which  will  give  his 
opponents  victory.  As  for  the  brutality  of  the  game, 
the  element  of  opinion  intrudes  here.  I  do  not  think  it 
brutal.  Its  brutality  will  depend  on  the  men  who  play 
it,  the  referees  and  umpires,  the  men  who  from  year  to 
year  make  rules  for  the  game,  and  on  the  alumni  and 
faculties  who  tacitly  or  otherwise  approve  the  rules. 
This  much  must  be  admitted.  Football  is  a  game  for 
boys  or  very  young  men,  and  it  requires  careful  training 
for  hard  games.  It  may  be,  therefore,  a  dangerous  game. 
It  exposes  younger  men  to  injury  from  mature  men. 
The  untrained  boy  is  out  of  place  in  the  contest. 

Is  this  necessarily  an  argument  against  the  game? 
Certainly  not.  There  are  few  sports  which  do  not  require 
some  practice  or  training.  It  means,  first,  that  if  it  is 
to  remain  a  college  sport  it  should  be  guarded  on  the 
one  hand  by  excluding  mature  men — in  short,  by  a  strict 
undergraduate  rule;  and  on  the  other  hand,  by  keeping 
back  undeveloped  boys — for  example,  by  refusing  per- 
mission to  members  of  the  Freshman  class  to  play  match 


15 

games.  Again,  there  creep  in  from  time  to  time  phases 
of  play  which,  while  not  at  all  brutal,  are  dangerous. 
Thus,  the  "wedge"  is  simply  a  test  of  pushing  power. 
When  the  wedge  breaks,  the  men  are  so  entangled  that 
sprains  are  of  frequent  occurrence.  After  playing  the 
old  open  game  in  this  country,  I  played  the  old-fashioned 
wedge  game  at  Oxford,  and  was  at  once  impressed  with 
its  clumsy  and  dangerous  character.  It  was  with  the 
utmost  regret,  therefore,  that  I  saw  it  introduced  into 
American  football,  in  a  more  effective  and  scientific 
form,  but  only  rendered  more  dangerous  thereby.  Keep 
football  to  the  undergraduates;  eliminate  the  younger 
element  of  the  Freshman  class;  have  the  medical  direc- 
tor omnipotent  in  excluding  boys  weak  in  heart  or  suf- 
fering from  strains;  see  that  there  are  enough  umpires 
to  check  sudden  gusts  of  temper  (boys  are  human,  but 
should  be  taught  the  penalties  of  too  much  human 
nature),  and  not  only  enough  umpires  but  men  of  reso- 
lute love  for  fair  sport ;  do  all  this,  and  football  is  a  game 
to  hold  to.  Let  professionalism  creep  in,  let  men  take 
post-graduate  courses  in  order  to  play  football — nay, 
even  encourage  graduates  to  play — and  the  game  may 
soon  be  tabooed. 

Of  baseball,  less  need  be  said,  though  I  am  convinced 
that  baseball  is  a  more  serious  problem  within  college 
walls  than  football.  The  special  skill  and  the  special 
danger  of  the  positions  of  the  pitcher  and  catcher  make 
the  temptation  of  professionalism  greatest  just  there.  A 
man  brought  to  college  to  play  in  a  position  of  this  sort 
is  a  moral  canker  long  before  he  is  known,  for  some  of 
these  men  are  beyond  detection  at  first,  and  when  known 
to  some  who  ought  to  care  more  for  college  morals  than 


16 

for  college  games,  are  not  always  unmasked.  More  than 
this,  baseball  has  a  longer  period  of  training  and  a 
longer  season,  and  more  games  played  away  from  col- 
lege. Football  occupies  from  about  the  first  of  October 
to  the  first  of  December;  baseball  from  the  middle  of 
January  to  the  middle  of  June. 

The  time  that  such  sports  occupy  may  be  only  what  is 
properly  given  to  physical  training.  It  may  be  half  the 
day.  In  Lafayette  College  the  time  is  practically  just 
what  is  required  in  the  gymnasium,  and  at  the  same 
hours.  The  loss  of  time  is  more  in  the  talk  and  discus- 
sion which  spring  up  around  a  topic  of  absorbing  inter- 
est. A  football  season,  for  this  reason,  may  become  as 
bad  as  a  presidential  election  to  the  country  at  large. 
Ordinarily,  however,  this  is  no  great  evil,  and  football 
is  a  better  subject  for  social  talk  than  some  things  that 
used  to  intrude  into  such  coteries  as  now  waste  time  over 
athletic  possibilities.  The  real  student  is  not  distracted. 
The  average  college  man,  who  will  not  "talk  shop"  any 
more  than  the  average  business  man,  is  not  materially 
injured. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  evil  influences  engen- 
dered by  college  athletics,  we  face  a  different  condition 
of  affairs.  There  is  a  great  and  crying  need  of  reform. 
The  sore  spots  are  "foreign  games"  (games  played  away 
from  the  colleges)  and  gambling. 

My  personal  convictions  are  that  college  games  should 
be  played  on  college  grounds,  and  only  on  college  grounds. 
Further  than  this  it  is  not  necessary  to  go,  if  training  on 
the  part  of  the  team  is  what  it  should  be,  for  it  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that,  if  the  players  are  well  managed, 
it  is  not  they,  but  the  camp-followers,  who  are  respon- 


17 

sible  for  the  dissipation  which  takes  place  after  games; 
and  I  am  confident  that  I  am  within  bounds  when  I  say- 
that  the  more  serious  acts  of  a  bad  nature  are  caused  by 
young  alumni  and  former  students.  This  latter  class  is 
a  large  and  always  an  aggressive  one,  especially  when 
they  have  been  dismissed  from  college.  The  small  col- 
leges are  not  much  troubled  with  the  evil  of  "foreign" 
games.  They  feel,  however,  that  their  athletic  interests 
suffer  from  the  ill  report  which  proceeds  from  the  after- 
math of  the  great  city  games.  I  especially  hope  that 
Christian  education  may  soon  be  cut  off  from  any  part 
in  the  awful  desecration  of  our  great  national  feast-day. 
And  desecration  it  is.  We  think  of  the  day  as  one  set 
apart  for  the  giving  of  thanks  to  God  for  national  bene- 
fits. The  memories  connected  with  it  make  the  home 
the  first  of  these  benefits:  the  Christian  home  with  its 
self-respecting  manhood  and  womanhood.  Next  to  the 
home,  citizenship  is  the  most  precious  of  these  benefits 
— free  citizenship  which  imposes  the  duty  of  observing 
the  law  and  proving  the  right  of  men  to  govern  them- 
selves. Upon  such  a  day  to  find  great  institutions 
founded  for  the  training  of  our  young  men  in  the  highest 
manhood  turning  them  loose  upon  our  greatest  city  to 
lead  it  in  a  very  carnival  of  vice,  is  shocking  in  the 
extreme.  Make  as  much  allowance  as  we  can,  we  can- 
not excuse  it.  Streets  ringing  with  rowdy  cries ;  theaters 
stormed  and  interrupted;  houses  which  no  young  man 
should  ever  enter — saloons,  dance-halls,  and  worse — 
thronged  with  excited,  overwrought  young  men,  who 
would  never  have  come  in  contact  with  such  scenes  but 
for  the  conditions  of  this  day — are  such  circumstances 
the  proper  avenues  to  happy  homes  and  useful  lives,  or 


the  first  acts  in  lives  of  tempation  and  vice?  Not  all 
are  college  men— not  a  majority,  not  even  a  large  minor- 
ity, it  may  be;  but  without  the  college  element,  without 
the  fluttering  ribbon  of  blue,  or  crimson,  or  orange  and 
black,  without  the  college  game,  the  Lord  of  Misrule 
would  not  walk  the  streets  this  night. 

And  how  much  gambling  in  and  out  of  college  is 
caused  by  these  great  games?  In  college  the  feeling  with 
most  men  is  sober,  and  opposed  to  the  thought  that  lies 
at  the  basis  of  gambling,  whether  it  be  the  calculating 
desire  to  get  something  for  nothing,  or  the  reckless  desire 
for  excitement.  But  in  the  hotel  corridor,  on  the  field, 
or  in  a  shouting  crowd  of  irresponsible  unknown  men  or 
rivals  there  is  only  character  to  steady  the  half-developed 
boy.  A  bluff,  a  taunt — and  the  bet  is  made  that  even- 
tually makes  one  man  a  gambler  and  deprives  another 
of  his  proper  spending  money  for  months.  And  then  it 
is  surely  a  shame  to  feel  and  know  that  a  college  game 
is  as  much  a  gambler's  field  as  a  race  track. 

The  question  of  gambling  concerns  the  small  colleges 
but  little.  Few  men  learn  to  gamble  where  they  have 
nothing  to  stake.  Poverty  is  a  blessing  in  such  a  case. 
More  money  changes  hands,  it  is  said,  on  the  Thanks- 
giving game  of  football,  than  all  the  boys  at  many  a 
college  of  three  to  four  hundred  students  spend  in  a  year. 
Gambling  is  a  universal  vice,  however,  and  a  most  fatal 
one.  Anything  which  tends  to  lesson  it  will  be  a  boon 
to  the  country. 

What  has  been  said  of  gambling  applies  also  to  the 
question  of  gate-money.  It  is  the  lack  of  money  which 
seems  to  our  struggling  colleges  to  be  the  root  of  all 
evil.     They  stand  agape  when  they  learn  from  the  pub- 


19 

lie  press  that  the  income  from  the  Thanksgiving  game 
of  football  is  greater  than  the  total  annual  expenditure 
of  their  trustees  for  the  support  of  twenty-five  professors 
and  the  education  of  three  hundred  boys.  What  does 
this  imply?  A  wild  extravagance  in  athletic  outfits,  in 
traveling  with  special  cars  and  stopping  at  expensive 
hotels,  in  hiring  trainers — an  extravagance  which  com- 
municates itself  to  the  smaller  colleges  and  leads  them 
dishonestly  to  contract  bills  for  athletic  supplies  which 
they  can  never  pay. 

Public  opinion  demands  that  there  shall  be  an  end  to 
this.  The  way  to  stop  it  is  to  play  all  games  on  col- 
lege grounds.  Not  only  must  the  games  be  played  on 
college  grounds,  but  on  such  college  grounds  as  have 
about  them  the  college  atmosphere.  A  city  ground  used 
by  a  college  will  never  have  this.  How  many  parents 
have  read  with  wonder,  and  alarm  for  their  boys,  of 
teams  going  to  Springfield  several  days  before  the  game, 
and  of  the  preparation  there?  How  many  have  won- 
dered why  it  was  that,  despite  a  widely  published  proc- 
lamation requiring  students  to  report  at  one  college  at 
midnight  on  Thanksgiving,  or  at  noon  on  Friday  at  la- 
test, that  the  team  remained  at  a  New  York  hotel  till 
Monday,  and  then  returned  in  a  triumphal  procession? 
Had  the  team  ceased  to  be  students?  Or  were  they,  as 
some  newspapers  said,  too  battered  and  bruised  to 
return?  If  the  former,  why?  If  the  latter,  then  the 
game  as  played  is  brutal,  and  its  grave  should  be  pre- 
pared. 

Whose  is  the  responsibility?  Let  us  not  shirk  our 
share.  College  life  is  as  important  as  college  learning. 
The  teaching  which  instructs  the  mind,  but  leaves  the 


20 

man  an  uninformed  and  half  developed  being,  is  radi- 
cally wrong  somewhere.  No  college  can  say,  "We 
teach  the  students,  and  our  responsibility  ends  there." 
The  colleges  must  be  tried,  as  other  institutions  are 
tried,  by  their  fruits.  Wise  parents  expect  their  sons  to 
be  taught  by  example  as  well  as  precept,  and  to  be  made 
men  as  well  as  bachelors  of  arts. 

There  are,  therefore,  real  abuses  connected  with  these 
games.  But  shall  we  abandon  the  manly  features  or 
reform  the  abuses?  It  is  a  question  for  the  large  uni- 
versities to  answer.  The  small  colleges  will  be  able  to 
hold  their  boys  within  bounds  for  the  present.  The 
small  college  is  still  democratic.  Its  president  and  faculty 
and  students  are  still  the  closely  knit  fabric  of  a  simpler 
time.  There  are  no  distinctions  of  rank  and  wealth. 
The  president  relies  on  the  love  of  the  boys,  and  wins  it 
by  seeking  to  aid  them  in  all  right  ways.  No  high  wall 
of  affairs  shuts  him  off  from  them;  no  intrusive  demands 
of  the  outside  world  draw  them  away  from  him.  The 
influx  and  efflux  of  a  great  university  make  the  voice 
of  the  public  more  potent.     What  are  the  people  saying? 

(i)  Football  is  become  too  dangerous]  accidents  too  seri- 
ous.— Let  the  colleges  heed  the  cry.  Let  the  alumni 
and  faculties  put  on  foot  a  radical  revision  of  the  rules. 
Let  games  be  only  between  college  boys.  The  Eton- 
Harrow  cricket-match  is  a  greater  function  in  England 
than  any  university  match.  Everywhere  the  youth  of 
a  country  are  dearer  and  more  influential  than  the  bru- 
tal manhood.  Make  football  a  fine  sport  of  manly  boys, 
and  there  will  be  fewer  prize-fighters,  "toughs,"  and 
men  of  doubtful  character  at  the  games,  but  more  mothers 
and  sisters  and  wise  and  prudent  gentlemen.     Drive  out 


the  professionalism,  bring  in  the  spirit  of  fair  play,  and 
revive  a  love  for  the  distinctive  spirit  of  each  college's 
own  breeding. 

(2)  Games  in  great  cities  have  become  the  occasion,  if  not 
the  cause,  of  vice. — Let  games,  then,  be  on  college  grounds. 
Then  if  this  or  that  college  cannot,  or  will  not,  suppress 
drinking  and  gambling,  it  will  remain  with  public  senti- 
ment to  decide  whether  they  deserve  support  or  not. 

Let  us  all,  as  citizens,  as  well  as  teachers  or  preachers, 
seek  to  build  character  on  a  sound  basis.  Let  us  relegate 
every  brutal  sport  to  the  limbo  to  which  our  Puritan 
forefathers  sent  bear-baiting  and  dog-fighting,  and  to 
which  we  are  trying  to  relegate  the  survivors  of  such 
barbarities,  as  prize-fighting.  But  do  not  let  us  lose  our 
heads  and  throw  away  our  manly  sports.  We  might  as 
well  abandon  a  democratic  form  of  government  because 
Tammany  Hall  has  grown  up  under  it.  Reform,  and  not 
destruction,  is  the  need  of  the  hour.  What  we  need  is 
to  combine  to  urge  the  naturally  studious  to  cultivate 
their  bodies;  the  naturally  vigorous  in  body,  to  cultivate 
their  minds.  Such  efforts  will  only  partly  succeed.  But 
instead  of  the  sharp  line  between  the  stoop-shouldered 
student  and  the  riotous  or  negligent  loafer,  there  is  now 
a  large  and  well-ordered  majority  of  men  who  study  well 
and  take  a  reasonable  amount  of  physical  exercise.  As 
college  elocution  centers  on  contests  in  oratory  and  debate, 
as  college  literary  work  centers  on  college  papers  and 
college  essay-prizes,  so  college  athletics  center  on  teams 
and  match-games.  Prizes  and  teams  and  match-games 
all  have  their  evils,  evils  of  distraction  and  attraction, 
but  they  are  indispensable  until  some  better  plan  of  stimu- 
lating and  perpetuating  effort  is  devised. 


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The  place  of  athletics  in 
college  life   


